Flow in Locally Constricted Tubes at Low Reynolds Numbers

Abstract

With an objective to understand arteriosclerosis, the blood flow in a circular cylindrical tube with a local constriction is analyzed. Numerical results are presented for the streamlines and the distributions of velocity, pressure, vorticity, and shear stress in the Reynolds number range 0–25. These results have applications to other fluid-mechanical problems such as gauges for velocity measurements, etc.